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Fully funding pension and retiree health care benefits, fostering substance abuse and mental health programs to help reduce drug-related deaths and reducing jail overcrowding are among the priorities of Macomb County commissioners for the county's upcoming budget.

The board is to get the proposed 2016-18 budget by July 1 from the county executive's office.

A budget presentation is set for July 14. The board will take a department by department look at the proposed budget in July and August.

A public hearing is set for 9 a.m. Sept. 10, followed by the budget's adoption.

Among the board's legislative priorities in the upcoming budget is reducing jail overcrowding — the 15th overcrowding emergency since 2003 ended last week with the release of 104 inmates. The board wants to encourage alternatives to incarceration including pretrial services, mental health services and specialty courts for people with non-violent offenses.

A $240,000 year-long feasibility and needs study is being done of the brick-and-mortar lockup, the county's existing and future criminal justice programs and jail population.

Other board priorities listed in a resolution approved at committee level Wednesday are: programs and services that leverage the county's green spaces and maximize opportunities at the Metroparks, the Macomb Orchard Trail and other locales; expanding the capabilities to consolidate resources with local municipalities, and ensuring that county services and programs accommodate the growing refugee and immigrant community, Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans and increasing aging population.

It also lists supporting solutions to combat increasing poverty rates in suburban communities.

The county's adopted budget this year is $193 million and had no tax hikes or layoffs.